24G MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



scioasness of possessing powers, and lie is overwhelmed with grief 

 and vexation when he meets with any obstacle which presents an 

 insurmountable obstruction to his free and unfettered exercise of 

 these powers. 



" ' All the principles which the human being possesses have been 

 given to him for the purpose of enabling him to fight his way 

 through scenes of trouble, and difficulty, and danger, and it has 

 been also wisely decreed that the exercise of these principles or 

 powers, when crowned with success, should afford him pleasure. 

 The woodsman who is engaged in felling pines in the awful depths 

 of the American forest, derives pleasure from the consciousness of 

 jjower, as he sees giant after giant laid low at his feet by the 

 prowess of his own unaided arm, at the same time that he is use- 

 fully employed in clearing out a domain for the support, it may be, 

 of his wife and family. The lonely hunter feels a pleasure in his 

 powers as he brings dow T n the towering bird of Jove by his un- 

 erring ball, or as he meets a boar in deadly conflict, and drains the 

 heart's blood of the brute with his spear. The savage fisherman 

 of the far north, as he goes in his frail canoe to pursue the most peril- 

 ous of aU enterprises, feels a pleasure in his powers, as he triumphs 

 by the skill of his rude harpoon over even the mightiest denizens 

 of the deep. The peasant from his conscious feeling of manly 

 power in every muscle of his stalwart frame derives pleasure, and, 

 at the same time, the ability to sustain all the trials and conquer all 

 the difficulties which cross him on his toil-worn path. The life of 

 the scholar is as much a life of difficulty as the life of the traveller 

 who plods on his way through unknown countries, and requires in 

 a high degree the sense of power to cheer and sustain him on his 

 course ; for we all know that conquests in the kingdom of intelli- 

 gence are not to be won by one day's battle. . . . 



" ' If the mind needs support in its search after virtue, it must 

 much more need it in the ordinary business and pursuits of 

 life. 



" ' To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering. . . . 



" ' It has often occurred to us that the most debased and humilia- 

 ting state in which human nature could be found, is that where 

 men have calmly bowed themselves under the disadvantages in 

 which nature has seen fit originally to place them, without a single 

 stout-hearted effort to relieve themselves from them ; as, for instance, 



